Category Archives: Free Speech

In a veiled attack on the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), Congress President Sonia Gandhi said in the Lok Sabha today, that there are some organizations in the country which have no role in the freedom struggle and had vehemently opposed the Quit India Movement.

Speaking on the 75th anniversary of Quit India Movement, Sonia said, "We must not forget that some organizations opposed Quit India Movement. Such organisations have no role in freedom struggle."

Slamming the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, she said the politics of hatred and revenge is prevailing in the country which has left no place for open debate and discussion.

"Today it looks secularism and free speech are in danger: There is politics of divide; if we have to preserve freedom, we'll have to defeat forces endangering it," she added.

Recounting the freedom struggle of former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and other Congress leaders, Sonia said, "During freedom struggle, Pandit Nehru spent several years in jail, many Congress workers died in jail. A lot of atrocities were committed on the protesters during the Quit India Movement but no one stepped back."

Earlier in the day, observing the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged the nation to make India free from poverty, corruption, terrorism, casteism, communalism and to create a 'New India' by 2022.

The Prime Minister took to his Twitter handle to praise the sacrifices of all the bravehearts who were part of the movement to free India from the British rule.

"On the 75th anniversary of the historic Quit India movement, we salute all the great women & men who took part in the movement (sic)," he tweeted.

"Let us pledge to free India from poverty, dirt, corruption, terrorism, casteism, communalism & create a 'New India' of our dreams by 2022 (sic)," he added.

Prime Minister Modi appealed to the people to create a nation on which the country's freedom fighters would be proud of.

"In 1942, the need of the hour was to free India from colonialism. Today, 75 years later the issues are different (sic)," he tweeted.

"Let us work shoulder to shoulder to create the India that our freedom fighters would be proud of. #SankalpSeSiddhi (sic)," he added.

He also praised Father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi for launching and leading this campaign which helped India to gain freedom.

"Under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, the entire nation came together with the aim of attaining freedom (sic)," he tweeted.

The nation is celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Quit India Movement.

A number of events are being planned at organisational and local levels to mark the occasion.

This year's theme is "Sankalp se Siddhi- the attainment through resolve.

The Quit India Movement was an important milestone in the Indian freedom struggle. Under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi, people across India came together to uproot imperialism. (ANI)

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'Secularism, Free Speech' In Danger: Sonia Attacks BJP-RSS, Says They Played 'No Role' In Freedom Struggle - Outlook India

University of California, Berkeley, police guarded a building where conservative pundit Milo Yiannopoulos was to speak in February.

With every passing week, those who predicted the tyranny of President Trump look sillier. Blocked by the courts, frustrated by Congress, assailed by the press, under mounting pressure from a special counsel, and reduced to reenacting The Apprentice within the White House, the president has passed from tyranny to trumpery to tomfoolery with the speed of a fat man stepping on a banana skin.

So does that mean we can all stop worrying about tyranny in America? No. For the worst thing about the Trump presidency is that its failure risks opening the door for the equal and opposite but much more ruthless populism of the left. Call me an unreconstructed Cold Warrior, but I find their tyranny a far more alarming and more likely prospect.

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With few exceptions, American conservatives respect the Constitution. The modern American left, by contrast, thirsts to get rid of one of the most fundamental protections that the Constitution enshrines: free speech. If you want to see where that freedom is currently under attack in the United States, accompany me to some institutions where you might expect free expression to be revered.

Almost every month this year has seen at least one assault on free speech on an American college campus. In February the University of California, Berkeley, canceled a talk by Milo Yiannopoulos, the British alt-right journalist and provocateur, after a violent demonstration. In March students at Middlebury College in Vermont shouted down the sociologist Charles Murray and assaulted his faculty host. In April, it was the turn of conservative writer Heather MacDonald at Claremont McKenna and pro-Trump journalist Ann Coulter at Berkeley.

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Nor is it only right-wing speakers who have been targeted. Bret Weinstein, a biology professor at Evergreen State College in Washington state, always thought of himself as deeply progressive. In May, however, it was his turn to fall victim to the unfree speech vigilantes. Weinstein refused to acquiesce when white students, staff, and faculty were invited to leave campus for a day. In response, a group of about 50 students confronted him outside his classroom, shrilly accusing him of supporting white supremacy and refusing to listen to his counter-arguments.

Safe spaces for speech arent free. Free speech isnt safe.

No one could accuse the great Oxford zoologist Richard Dawkins of being right-wing. Yet last month it was his turn to be silenced. A public radio station in you guessed it Berkeley canceled a discussion of his latest book because (in the words of a spokesman) he has said things that I know have hurt people, a misleading allusion to the atheist Dawkinss forthright criticism of Islam. The stations general manager declared: We believe that it is our free speech right not to participate with anyone who uses hateful or hurtful language against a community that is already under attack.

These are weasel words similar to those published in The New York Times back in April by Ulrich Baer, a professor of comparative literature at New York University who also glories in the title of vice provost for faculty, arts, humanities, and diversity. The idea of freedom of speech, wrote Baer, does not mean a blanket permission to say anything anybody thinks. It means balancing the inherent value of a given view with the obligation to ensure that other members of a given community can participate in discourse as fully recognized members of that community.

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Freedom of expression is not an unchanging absolute, Baer went on. [I]t requires the vigilant and continuing examination of its parameters.

Sorry, mate. Freedom of expression is an unchanging absolute and, as a free speech absolutist, I am here (a) to defend to the death your right to publish such drivel and (b) to explain to as many people as possible why it is so dangerous.

Freedom is rarely killed off by people chanting Down with Freedom! It is killed off by people claiming that the greater good/the general will/the community/the proletariat requires examination of the parameters (or some such cant phrase) of individual liberty. If the criterion for censorship is that nobodys feelings can be hurt, we are finished as a free society.

Where such arguments lead is just a long-haul flight away.

The regime of Hugo Chavez and his successor, Nicolas Maduro, in Venezuela, used to be the toast of such darlings of the American Left as Naomi Klein, whose 2007 book The Shock Doctrine praised Venezuela as a zone of relative economic calm in a world dominated by marauding free market economists. Today (as was eminently foreseeable 10 years back), Venezuela is in a state of economic collapse, its opposition leaders are in jail, and its constitution is about to be rewritten yet again to keep the Chavista dictatorship in power. Another regime where those who speak freely land in jail is Saudi Arabia, a regime lauded by Womens March leader and sharia law enthusiast Linda Sarsour.

Mark my words, while I can still publish them with impunity: The real tyrants, when they come, will be for diversity (except of opinion) and against hate speech (except their own).

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The biggest threat to free speech? It's the left - The Boston Globe

Comedian and activist Chelsea Handler faced a wave of social media backlash over the weekend for her advocacy of European-inspired laws that restrict freedom of expression.

The star of Netflixs Chelsea told over 7.5 million Twitter followers Sunday that America should adopt laws that penalize individuals who laugh at racist jokes a comment that didnt sit well with her audience, which noted the irony of an American comedian pushing for added restrictions on the First Amendment.

2 Chinese guys were arrested in Berlin for making Nazi salutes. Wouldnt it be nice 2 have laws here for people who think racism is funny? Ms. Handler tweeted.

Comedians Against The First Amendment, deadpanned The Daily Beasts Lachlan Markay. Folks like @chelseahandler ride the legal coattails of freedoms won by folks like Lenny Bruce, then demand their contemporaries be arrested.

See, the thing is, youre as much of a fascist as the guys throwing up the Nazi salute, replied conservative author and pundit Ben Shapiro.

Dumbest tweet on Twitter today. Congratulations, added YouTube star and political commentator Mark Dice.

Others noted that Ms. Handlers past comments would possibly run afoul of such laws, including a September tweet joking that actor Brad Pitt wanted the China in divorce proceedings with Angelia Jolie and that she wanted [adopted Asian children] Pax and Maddox.

#sorrycouldnthelpmyself, she wrote at the time.

Original post:
Chelsea Handler calls for free speech curbs, laws against 'people who think racism is funny' - Washington Times

Arab rulers across the Middle East detest free speech. The demand that Al- Jazeera close its operations is no surprise. Al-Jazeera (which means the island) offers talk shows, documentaries, and news in Arabic, the language of the region that reaches more than 350 million Arabic-speaking people from Mauritania to Yemen. Headquartered in Doha, Qatar, a native Arab land, Al-Jazeera has adopted an iconoclastic motto opinion and the other opinion.

For most Arab rulers, there is always only one opinion, the opinion of the government, and for them all other opinions are false, alien, and subversive. This commentary analyzes why Arab rulers are hostile to free speech, particularly the home-grown free speech, emanating from within the region, in Arabic dialects and metaphors, by Arab intellectuals, analysts, and critics.

For centuries, the Arab rulers are used to reverence, hand-kissing, and bowing. The Arab rulers, be they military officers, kings, emirs, or presidents, share a similar concept of leadership. They truly believe in their hearts that they are the men-in-authority chosen with divine will. They cherish an automatically presumed self-concept of being noble, just, and sagacious. Witness how General Abdel Fattah al-Sisi, the Egyptian martinet, who overthrew a democratically-elected government, smiles with condescending wisdom. Such men as sovereigns (and there are no women Arab rulers) are not open to free speech.

Also historically, the Arab rulers have been tolerant of foreign criticism but not of internal dissent. Even today, the Arab rulers tolerate the non-Arab opinions broadcasted by the BBC, Voice of America, Press TV (Iran), or any other foreign outfit because the Arab rulers rely on an overarching paradigm that the foreigners, including Europeans, Americans, and Iranians, brood ill-will against the glorious Arab civilization that once dominated the world for centuries and gifted the world with the religion of Islam. They dismiss the Europeans as colonists, they deride the Americans as Islamophobes, and they scorn the Iranians as Shias, who are corrupting the true message of Islam that only the Arab rulers understand and have been ordained by Allah to preserve.

Al-Jazeera offers internal dissent, which is interpreted as baghyan (rebellion). The real-time reporting that deviates from the official truth, the unfavorable documentaries, and intellectual ruminations, aired in various shows at Al-Jazeera, all are seen as internal threat to political order that the Arab governments have imposed without the will of the people. Unintendedly, for that is the fallout of free speech, Al-Jazeera challenges the historical narrative of infallible Muslim rulers who can do no wrong.

In Arab countries, banning Al-Jazeera is seen as the right thing to suppress fitna (mischief), another convenient concept that the Arab rulers frequently invoke to arrest journalists, lash critics in public, and execute intellectuals and scholars. In Egypt, for example, Hassan al-Banna was assassinated in 1949, Sayyid Qutub was hanged in 1966, as both scholars were seen as the purveyors of fitna. President Morsi, elected in 2012, is in prison accused of terrorism and faces capital punishment. Egypt, the most prominent Arabic speaking country, has blocked or banned Al-Jazeera in cahoots with U.A.E, and Saudi Arabia. All are determined to eliminate fitna (fake news, lies, and terrorism) that Al-Jazeera allegedly promotes.

The Arab rulers, the self-appointed defenders of true religion, defame Islam as the peoples of the world gather the impression that Islam is hostile to democracy and free speech. Even though the majority of Muslims, living in Indonesia, Turkey, Iran, India, Pakistan, and many other nations, are non-Arabs, the world continues to associate Islam with the Arabs, particularly with Saudi Arabia, where the prophet is buried and where the Quran was revealed in Arabic. Despite the expansion of Islam in all continents, what the Arab rulers do or say have significant bearing on the image of Islam for non-Muslims.

Even Islamophobia in the West is a distorted reaction to the Middle Eastern customs that have little to do with the teachings of Islam. Seeing that women cannot drive in Saudi Arabia, seeing that the leaders of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State hailed from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Iraq, and seeing the failed efforts to bring democracy in Arab countries, non-Muslims of the world construct a view of Islam rooted in misogyny, terrorism, and tyranny. The opposition to Shariah in the United States has everything to do with what the Americans witness in the Middle East.

Outside the Middle East, Islam has a different ethos. Consider Pakistan, a country carved out of India in the name of Islam. Only a few days ago, the Supreme Court disqualified a democratically elected prime minister, the highest political office in the countryan unthinkable event in the Arab heartland. In Pakistan, hundreds of newspapers and TV channels are determined on a daily basis to find faults with every aspect of the government and opposition. Although Pakistan has suffered military interventions, free speech has remained vibrant for most of its history. In this country, no credible paradigm paints the ruler as noble, wise, or appointed by Allah. Rulers are seen fallible and replaceable. Sometimes, the military generals get away with murder but this impunity is never associated with the dictates of Islam. In fact, even supporters of military generals advocate equality under the norms of Islamic justice.

Arab rulers detest free speech because they obtain and retain political power without the will of the people. They see free speech as a threat to the unrepresentative form of government they institute. The convenient labels of baghyan and fitna, mentioned in the Quran, are arbitrarily invoked to suppress legitimate criticism and dissent. The label of terrorism is also convenient to eliminate opposing viewpoints. The proposal to shut down Al-Jazeera reflects how the Arab rulers build their castles in sand that cannot tolerate the winds of free speech.

(The author has no affiliation with Al-Jazeera.)

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Why Arab Rulers Detest Free Speech - HuffPost

TheAmerican Civil Liberties Unionconsiders the proposedIsraeliAnti-Boycott Act, which isworking its way through Congress,a serious threat to free speech. We agree.

The act targetsan international effort to boycott businesses in Israel and occupied Palestinian territoriesto pressure Israel to comply with international law and to stop the further construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.

The bill would threaten large fines and prison time for businesses and individuals who dont buy from Israeli companies operating in occupied Palestinian territories, and who make statements, including social media posts, saying that they are doing so in order to boycott.

The bill would make it a felony to support the internationalboycott. Those found in violation would be subject to a minimum civil penalty of $250,000, a maximum criminal penalty of $1 million and 20 years in prison, according to the ACLUs analysis.

The global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, or BDS, began after Palestinian civil society organizations in 2005 called for aboycottto pressure Israel over its treatment of Palestinians. Among the movements goals: ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and Golan Heights; equality under Israeli law for Arab citizens; and stopping the expansion of almost exclusively Jewish settlements in Israeli-occupied territories, which the United Nations says is a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Detractors say that BDS unfairly targets Israel, with the Anti-Defamation League going so far as to say it is the most prominent effort to undermine Israels existence. Supporters, however, say its a nonviolent movement inspired in part by similar actions taken against the apartheid regime in South Africa in the 1980s.

In Massachusetts, U.S. Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield, is one of 237 members of the House to co-sponsor the bill.

Neal explained his sponsorship recently by saying, I am opposed to international efforts that attempt to isolate, boycottand delegitimize the State of Israel. If peace in the Middle East is to be achieved, it will only come about through direct negotiations between the Israelis and the Palestinians I take the views of the ACLU seriously, but remain deeply concerned about a movement that demonizes our close ally and rejects a two-state solution.

While we support Israels right to exist andour countrys historic alliance with Israel against its enemies, we should not let that trump the right of our citizens to express their political viewsthrough boycott without fear ofretribution from a government that disagrees with their political stance. Today Israel, tomorrow..what?

The ACLU is right to dig in on this. Its the edge of the proverbial slippery slope.

If members of Congresswant to lend their support to Israel, then let them lend their voices, but not try to stiffle the voices of their fellow citizens.

Other countries including France and Britain have enacted similar anti-boycott measures, but that doesnt make it right or mean we should follow suit. Formore than 200 years America has seen itself as the champion of personal freedom and democracy, and we shouldntnow abandonthat leadership role in the world.

As the ACLU has argued, individuals, not the government, should have the right to decide whether to support boycotts against practices they oppose.

The civil liberties organization has pointed to the 1982 Supreme Court case National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Claiborne Hardware Co., in which the court ruled that nonviolent advocacy of politically motivated boycotts is protected as free speech.

Meanwhile, a somewhat similar bill is moving through the state Legislatureand would prevent those who have contracts with the state from refusing, failing or ceasing to do business with anybody based on their race, color, creed, religion, sex, national origin, gender identity or sexual orientation. But some of the bills backers, have explicitly stated that the goal is to target the anti-Israel boycottas a movement.

Joseph Levine, a philosophy professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a member of Western Mass. Jewish Voice for Peace, testified against the state bill recently for the same reason he thinks the federal proposal is bad policy.

As a Jewish American growing up in the generation right after the Holocaust, I am well aware of the frightening consequences that attend social toleration for racism in all its forms, particularly anti-Semitism, Levine said in his testimony. But I strongly oppose this act because I believe it actually fosters, rather than combats, discrimination.

I think the bill is horrible. It is a clear violation of peoples right to express their opinion It represents a frightening kind of authoritarianism that would be absolutely horrible and a terrible precedent if it passed.

The anti-boycott act is a rare bipartisan effort in 2017, with 31 Republican and 14 Democrat co-sponsors, and a similar House bill has 117 Republican and 63 Democrat co-sponsors.

Normally, we would applaud such bipartisanship, that would see the likes of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand,joining the likes of Sens. Ted Cruzand Marco Rubio to cosponsor the bill. But as the ACLU presses its arguments, some are having second thoughts.

Gillibrands officesaid she had a different understanding of the bill than the ACLU, but she expressed a desire to change it.

Wewere relievedto hear that after the ACLU raised the alarm some federal legislators were reviewing their support of the bill and hope that Congressman Nealwill do the same.

Excerpt from:
Anti-boycott bill threat to free speech - GazetteNET

An indispensable NFL player should take a knee. Maybe not during the National Anthem, but do it during a time when the sentiment is clear.

Lets not name names. Just please, any player with a franchise tag or franchise talent, take a knee. Take it for a universally agreeable cause free speech.

Well, it should be a universally agreeable cause.

Colin Kaepernicks controversial stand by taking a knee during the National Anthem last season has cost him on the job market this offseason. Hes not the best quarterback around, but please. Hes taken a team to a Super Bowl. His career touchdown passes-to-interceptions ratio is better than 2-1.

Thats 72 on the good side, 30 on the bad.

He warrants a place among the 64 quarterbacks that will begin the 2017 season as somebodys starter or backup, but he cant seem to get a job at age 29. Meanwhile, surly 30-something underachievers like Jay Cutler can come out of retirement for a one-year, $10 million deal.

Against this backdrop, newly anointed Hall of Fame owner Jerry Jones says, with impunity, hed cut a player for doing what Kaepernick did.

Right. Lets see Jones cut Ezekiel Elliott or Dak Prescott for kneeling.

Its time for high-end players to call the owners bluff. Take a knee to make a stand for free speech.

No one must agree with Kaepernicks reasons to agree with his right to express himself, and high-end players gladly stand with second-tier players in mutually beneficial labor disputes. They should also make a stand by taking a knee for their free speech.

Sports Writer Joe Medley: 256-235-3576. On Twitter:@jmedley_star.

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Joe Medley: NFL players should unite for free speech - Anniston Star

To listen to President Donald Trump and his surrogates rail against the American media, you would think the commander in chief was setting the stage for a nasty divorce proceeding. Some years back, he had a happy and reciprocal love affair with leading news and entertainment outlets, one that that he hasnt yet forgotten.

In Europe and back home recently, the president insisted in another of his myriad fake news claims that, NBC's equally as bad [as CNN], despite the fact that I made them a fortune with The Apprentice, but they forgot that!" And surrogate Kellyanne Conway accused CNNs anchor Chris Cuomo of ignoring other issues at home and paying more attention to Russia than to the good old United States.

Our first president, George Washington, would probably be at least irked to learnwere he to return to the banks of the Potomac for a dayabout all the serious charges of foreign meddling, which he warned adamantly against in his own Farewell Address.

But he also would likely be amused to see the Trump administration in such a dogfight with the Fourth Estate. He knew a little about the symbiotic relationship between people in power and their muses, who, in his day, often came in the form of poets working as journalists, or journalists working as playwrights.

George Washington, as general and as president, spent most of his career gliding past the daggers of his detractors, confident that free voices, though flawed and often inaccurate, were an essential element of a more open society and a bulwark against the omnipresent threat of oppression.

He made a point to be cordial with the press, and for good reason. Early on in his career, men and ladies of letters had adored and feted George Washington.

In October 26, 1775, a recently emancipated black poet, Phillis Wheatley, praised the newly-appointed commander of the Continental Army, writing,

Shall I to Washington their praise recite?

Enough thou know'st them in the fields of fight.

Thee, first in peace and honorswe demand.

The grace and glory of thy martial band.

Fam'd for thy valour, for thy virtues more,

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Hear every tongue thy guardian aid implore!

It was start of a golden age of revolution in which America needed heroes and the media of the day was there to help polish their legends. Throughout the grueling seven years of the Revolutionary War, the fledgling U.S. press provided blow-by-blow accounts of the revolt, so that as Ben Franklin wrote in 1782, the same truths may be repeatedly enforced by placing them daily in different lights in newspapers, which are everywhere read.

For his part, Washington saw press, poets and playwrightsparticularly the ones on his sideas the best defense against Tory lies. From his desk at Valley Forge, he wrote to the young poet Timothy Dwight to encourage him, stating that nothing would please him more than to patronize the essays of Genius and a laudable cultivation of the Arts & Sciences, which had begun to flourish in so eminent a degree, before the hand of oppression was stretched over our devoted Country.

Washington was, of course, a great actor on the stage of history and politics, and he also knew that no great actor could survive without the help of muses, who could be seen in public as free of shackles that others might place on them.

In May 1788, George wrote to his friend the Marquis de Lafayette, Men of real talents in Arms have commonly approved themselves patrons of the liberal arts and friends to poets, of their own as well as former times, adding that, In some instances by acting reciprocally, heroes have made poets, and poets heroes.

By contrast, Trump and his staff hammer the press daily with personal insults and have threatened to eliminate funding for the National Endowment of the Arts, which provides hundreds of millions of dollars annually to support independent voices, often critical of authority.

The White House has made plain its disdain for funding the NEA as well as public radio and television, but with major corporate and private backing, independent critics of those in power are likely to continue plying their trade regardless.

Breaking revelations that the Trump campaign actively sought foreign help to defeat Hillary Clinton are only likely to further stoke the fires of domestic criticism aimed at White House, also sometimes referred to as The Peoples House.

Such a role for artists and the media is as all American as apple pie and began with the imprimatur of POTUS #1.President Washington had to deal with members of the Fourth Estate out to ridicule and undermine his tenure. A leading and rabid critic, Philip Freneau, hired to work for the U.S. government by Washingtons sometimes friend and rival Thomas Jefferson, spent much of his desk time writing scathing critiques of Washington in his wildly partisanNational Gazette.

The paper was entirely unforgiving of anything that struck of gilded pleasures, calling Washingtons 61st birthday, party, for example, a forerunner of other monarchical vices, and asking rhetorically if the celebration of a leaders birthdaywhich was widely demanded by Washingtons many admirerswas not a striking feature of royalty? One cringes to think what Freneau might have concluded from one of Trumps lavish weekend soirees or staff pool parties at Mar-e-Lago.

The best way to understand the difference between POTUS #1 and POTUS #45 might well be to review the social milieu in which they earned their political chops.

As George launched his military career during the French and Indian War, the heart of the Old Dominion, Williamsburg, was witnessing an explosion of drama and fiction, including new plays marked by scathing satire, often with ironic twists aimed at highlighting or pillorying societal norms. Georges personal development ran parallel to this Augustan Age of wit, wisdom, and criticism.

Comedies of manners, as they were called, became all the rage before and after theFrench & Indian War. Virginia, like mother England, was learning to laugh at society, but, in particular, to make fun of stuffy, wealthy types who typified the ruling classes. Across the channel in France, writers and critics took a similar tack through plays, pamphlets, and cartoons, which would eventually spell the demiseand beheadingof the monarchy.

As in Paris, leading characters in many of Williamsburgs popular dramas were marked by their acute character flaws, whichmore often than notmade them comic misfits. Other stage stories delved into scandalincluding into the sexual peccadilloes of the elite class.

Washington found himself regularly at thetheater in Williamsburgin the company of a Thomas Jefferson, whoin contrast to George, who liked his expensive box seatsoften enjoyed watching performances from the rowdy pit beneath center stage, where detractors could throw rotten apples, tomatoes, and orange peels if they didnt like what they sawwhich could be numerous times in an evening.

Indeed, it is hard to see how Washington could have become the same inspired hero of the Revolution and advocate of a vibrant arts scene had he not been exposed to this rollicking age of drama in his teens and early twenties.

By contrast, it is worth remembering that Trump spent his early days promoting fake wrestling matches before he expanded his interests into beauty pageantsa far cry from the Colonial Era.

Despite the barbs thrown at him later in life, Washington never surrendered hisbelief that a battle of ideas was worth engaging in. He knew that arts and a free, unshackled press provided a means for him and his fellow Americans to envision their own idealsto put meat on the bone, so to speak. It was this faith in his own ideals that guided his evolution as one of Americas earliest and most influential patrons of the arts. He had his flaws, but he always ardently supported freedom of speech.

He wanted his fellow Americans to embrace this love and stated that: To encourage literature and the arts is a duty which every good citizen owes to his country.

While Washington was seenby virtue of his muses and a free pressas the embodiment of all courage and devotion to the nation for most of his career as a leader, and as president, he becameby the end of his first term in officea prime target for ridicule. Ironically, his unusual reward for fighting to oust a monarch from American shores was that he was now accused openly of coveting a crown. It was a story without substance, but it still stuck in some quarters.

Regardless, as president, Washington rarely displayed public disdain for the press. Only on one notable occasion, but within the confines of his own cabinet meeting, did he explode rather wildly against the insults cast upon him by the Fourth Estate.

At the closed meeting, his loyal friend, Henry Knox, who served as secretary of war, seized upon a newly published satire in the press titled The Funeral Dirge of George Washington and James Wilson, King and Judge,a playful little drama in which Washington was dragged before the guillotine for alleged aristocratic crimes. It was light satire, but it went too far for the president. It was, after all, suggesting his beheading in no uncertain terms.

Georges temper, which he struggled to control all his life, blew a fuse, and Thomas Jefferson described the rage of the president in these words: Washington went into a tirade, he said, and shouted that he would rather be on his farm than be made emperor of the world, and yet that they were charging him with wanting to be king. It wasnt the first time he had been ridiculed, and it would not be the last, but even magnanimous George had his limits.

He was at the end of his rope (and almost his presidency), and so he now dreamt about his ensuing and final retreat from politics beneath his proverbial vine and fig tree at Mount Vernon. In the end, the false and unsubstantiated charges in the media that he coveted a crown may well have bolstered his image when it became clear to his fellow Americans that he never harbored any such aspiration.

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George Washington Could Teach Trump A Lot About Free Speech - Daily Beast

Attorney General Jeff Sessionsplan to crack down on leaksfrom the Justice Department and intelligence community by subpoenaing reporters would constitute a serious threat to free speech, the American Civil Liberties Union warned Friday.

Sessions announced earlier in the day that the DOJ would be reviewing its policy on issuing subpoenas to members of the press as part of an effort to prevent such disclosures.

We respect the important role the press plays and will give them respect, but they cannot place lives at risk with impunity, Sessions said. We must balance their role with protecting our national security and the lives of those who serve in the intelligence community, the armed forces and all law-abiding Americans.

The ACLU, which has frequently criticized the Trump administration for encroachments on the First Amendment, said Sessions crackdown constitutes a threat to journalists and whistleblowers.

President Donald Trump has frequently spoken out against leaks he sees as damaging to his presidency, and has threatened to come down hard on government officials speaking to the press. He also previouslycriticized Sessions in public for not being tough enough on leaks, and reportedly asked former FBI Director James Comey to consider jailing reporters who publish classified information.

The presidents war on leaks reportedly led him to hire Anthony Scaramucci, an outspoken former Wall Street financier, as his communications director. Scaramucci immediately set out to find and fire White House staffers who had leaked to the press, even accusing then-chief of staff Reince Priebus of leaking. (Priebus ultimately resigned one week after Scaramuccis hire.) Scaramucci, however, was immediately fired by Priebusreplacement, Gen. John Kelly.

Trump has also frequently attacked the media as fake news, and has fiercely criticized reporters for covering the FBIs investigation into whether members of his campaign team colluded with Russian officials to influence the election, a probe he has called a witch hunt.

Continued here:
ACLU Sounds Alarm Over Trump Administration's 'Threat' To Free ... - HuffPost

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The University of Toledo became freer this year, according to a free-speech advocacy group.

The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education FIRE produces an annual ranking of speech codes at national universities.

It ranks these policies on a scale from red to green, with yellow in between. In FIREs 2017 report, UT went from red to yellow.

Bowling Green State University was yellow both years.

We strongly encourage freedom of expression and ideas in order to educate global citizens who are prepared for the real world, said Phillip Flapp Cockrell, the universitys interim vice president for student affairs.

In 2015, the University of Toledo landed on the radar of FIRE after complaints about how campus police handled protesters who came to a 2014 speech by Republican strategist Karl Rove.

Students said they tried to enter the room but were stopped by police. Students contended it was because they held signs.

That year, UT created a new policy to address free speech. The new policy permits petition and assembly anywhere on campus. The only caveat: Demonstrations may not disrupt teaching or operations. Notice is requested but not mandatory.

At the time, then-university spokesman Jon Strunk told the Blade only that the university had considered input from FIRE and the Arab-American Anti Discrimination Committee.

Charlie Moore, president of the University of Toledo College Democrats, said the administration had been accommodating of demonstrations and free speech on campus. He noted that two major recent protests one against President Trumps travel ban and another led by the Communications Workers of America chapter went on unimpeded.

They dont really touch it, he said. They just want to be hands-off.

In March, UT and BGSU removed flyers posted on or around their campuses by Identity Evropa, a white separatist group.

David Kielmeyer, a BGSU spokesman, said the schools speech regulations were not why they the flyers were taken down, but rather their illegal placement.

It wasnt about the type of speech, he said. It was where they were posted.

Christine Billau, a spokesman for UT, said the content of the flyers was a consideration.

We dont tolerate hate, racism, or intolerance.

When speech infringes on the rights of others, Mr. Cockrell said, it ceases to be protected.

Vanessa McCray contributed to this report.

Contact Victorio Cabrera atvcabrera@theblade.com,419-724-6050 or onTwitter @vomcabrera.

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University of Toledo raises free-speech grade - Toledo Blade

After a controversial year at ECU in which strong public expressions at both ends of the spectrum drew protests, the university and every other in the North Carolina system received clear instructions this week from the state Legislature on their responsibilities to protect free speech and expression on public campuses.

The N.C. General Assembly enacted into law the Restore Campus Free Speech Act, also known as House Bill 527,written by Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Forest. The bill had been returned July 31 unsigned by Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper.

LaQuon Rogers, ECU Student Government Association president, said the university had been acknowledging everyones right to free speech before HB 527 became law.

We recently have looked at our procedures and policies in terms of how we handle free speech (on campus), Rogers said. We made some adjustments in those areas that resulted in the campus being green-lighted as a free-speech campus. This legislation is coming at a time when we see differences of opinions in academic settings and people are expressing themselves.

Rogers was referring to the Green Light rating ECU received from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) after changing four campus policies to meet the groups First Amendment standards. That recognition was given the same week that the Legislature sent HB 527 to Cooper.

Essential portions of the new state law require the Board of Governors of The University of North Carolina develop and adopt apolicy on free expression that states, at least, the following:

The primary function of each constituent institution is the discovery,improvement, transmission and dissemination of knowledge by means ofresearch, teaching, discussion, and debate.To fulfill this function, theconstituent institution must strive to ensure the fullest degree of intellectualfreedom and free expression. It is not the proper role of any constituent institution to shield individualsfrom speech protected by the First Amendment, including, withoutlimitation, ideas and opinions they find unwelcome, disagreeable, or evendeeply offensive.

The law also states that colleges and universities may not require its students and faculty to express any given view of social policy; must provide access to campuses for free speech purposes, consistent with First Amendment law, including invited speakers; must provide a range of disciplinary sanctions for anyone who substantially disrupts its functioning or interferes with others protected free expressions; and enforce a clearly defined set of procedures for disciplinary actions and appeals related to free speech and protected conduct.

The new law also requires the UNC Board of Governors to establish from among its members an 11-member Committee on Free Expression that will report annually to the full board and the General Assembly on barriers or disruptions to free expression, handling of disciplinary cases, difficulties, controversies and successes relating to administrative neutrality on political and social issues.

The session law also protects institutional leaders and board members from personal liability for acts taken pursuant to their duties related to the law.

One thing I can say about ECU is that most of the time were ahead of the ballgame, Rogers said. We want to be sure all students feel welcome, and even the speakers we invite. We invite speakers with different views, and I think thats important for an academic institution.

The Daily Reflector also received a news release Tuesday from the Phoenix, Ariz.-based Barry Goldwater Institute. The staunchly conservative organization said the Legislature crafted HB 527 on its model bill.

The Goldwater Institute model legislation affirms a commitment to free speech on public college campuses, prohibits universities from disinviting speakers, and creates a system of sanctions for those who interfere with the free speech rights of others, the release said.

Groups like FIRE and the Goldwater Institute have been lauded and scrutinized because of their support from strongly conservative backers, including the Bradley Foundation, the Claude R. Lambe Foundation and several organizations supported by the activist Koch Brothers and Grover Norquist, who sits on the board of the Goldwater Institute.

Cooper opposed forcing the legislation on universities, but allowed it to become law, a spokesman from his office told The Daily Reflector.

While Gov. Cooper would prefer the state trust university leaders to handle these issues rather than for the legislature to dictate terms, he felt it was best to allow this legislation to become law given the overwhelming majority that supported it, the spokesman said.

The law is a solution in search of a problem, but free speech always should be a priority for public universities, Sarah Gillooly, policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of North Carolina, told the Carolina Journal after HB 527 was sent to Cooper.

In the rare circumstances where there is an issue with the stifling of free speech on campus, appropriate remedies exist and are working, Gillooly said.

Virginia Hardy, ECU Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, issued a statement following the changes that led to ECUs green light designation.

We are committed to free speech and freedom of expression on our campus, Hardy said. We want our students, faculty, staff and guests to feel comfortable exercising their rights and exploring their ideas. Allowing the opportunity for freedom of expression and civil discourse around differing views has always been, and continues to be, a mainstay of institutions of higher learning.

Contact Michael Abramowitz at 329-9507 and mabramowitz@reflector.com.

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Campus free speech politics settles in North Carolina - Greenville Daily Reflector